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- Title
Rethinking Folk Media in Digital Era: A Study on Bhaona Performances of Assam, India.
- Authors
Chattapadhyay, Richa; Chakraborty, Joya
- Abstract
Folk media are embedded with symbolic acts which communicate the ethos (social, cultural, political, environmental and economical) of the society yielding it. Ubiquity of new media has precipitated epochal alterations in cultural expressions, socializing patterns and global economy of the "network society". Recording, storing and retrieval of folk tradition due to new media are changing perspectives of folk culture, mainly the (re)presentation, conservation, consumption and communicative value of local heritage. Relocation of folk traditions in the new media implies appearance of newer meanings and altered functionality. Thus, representation of folk tradition in new media not only has an informative (communicative) and dispositive (conservative) function but also performative function. The ethnographic study on Bhaona - the ritualistic theatrical performances of Assam seek to understand the evolution of the folk tradition within the contemporary cultural community that mediates digitally. The qualitative study seeks to find out how Bhaona manifests in the digital age and contributes to the understanding of vernacular expressions in ever changing technology driven world. The study highlights whether new media is capable of radically transforming Bhaona and its functionality?; what are the guiding intention of the users who publish the cultural expressions in the new media platform - whether it is archiving or patrimonialization of culture; how the digital natives are using the digital culture's characteristics like interactivity, autonomy and connectivity to proliferate the tradition; and how Bhaona has re-contextualized to address the altered meaning making process in the Digital Era.
- Subjects
ASSAM (India); INDIA; DIGITAL media; FOLK culture; NETWORK society; DIGITAL technology; PERFORMANCE theory; COMMUNITIES; DIGITAL natives
- Publication
Global Media Journal: Indian Edition, 2022, Vol 14, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2249-5835
- Publication type
Article